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Hi AllI have a yanagiba knife that sees light use and didn't need sharpening until now. I use Edge Pro Apex, I don't do free hand sharpening.I've seen conflicting information on this, so would like to know once and for all, can a yanagiba knife be sharpened on Edge Pro without ruining it, or will I be committing a serious crime here... As I understand, the angle of a yanagiba is not identical along knife, hence Edge Pro is not really suitable unless I want to give it a new angle ?Thanks

Well, you're going to get conflicting advice here, as well. Some will say to go ahead and use the Edge Pro, but I will say that it is the wrong tool for the job. The back of a yanagiba is concave, not flat, so positioning it on the Edge Pro table is going to be problematical at best.

I wouldn't say you were committing a crime, as it is your knife, but it deserves better.

Since you will need to get a 5000 or 6000 grit stone to polish the ura, (the concave back of the knife), even if you use the Edge Pro, you might as well learn how to freehand sharpen your yanagiba. There are several articles and videos to show you how. A good place to start is here:

You can do it on an EP. Regarding the back of the knife, simply take the stone out of the EP and use it like a bench stone in a regular stone holder. Simply lay the blade flat on the stone and finish the back of the knife with it. This require minimal abrasion with a fine stone. Yes it's freehanding the back of the knife, but that's just fine. There is very little skill involved holding a knife flat against a stone surface.

The front of the blade. This gets a bit more interesting. There is nothing wrong with the entire front bevel being in one plane and by matching that plane, it is pretty straightforward to sharpen the front of a yanagi. If you want the tip progressively more acute position the knife so the tip area is FURTHER away from the pivot point, giving you precise rate of acuteness towards the front.

I would suggest you use your stones BOTH freehand and with the EP and learn both ways and decide what you prefer. A lot of the naysayers of doing single bevel knives on EP class devices just haven't made the effort to learn to do it both ways. In Japan, I have seen both a consistent bevel angle AND a tapered bevel angle on yanagis. It is a topic of great debate in the states, but not something most Japanese are too concerned with either way. Quite often they are completely unable to 'get' the distinction and feel it a trivial issue and just do it until it feels right. In the end it is your knife and you should do what you feel most comfortable doing.

Thanks for this advice Ken, I'm not religious about this one way or the other, and most of what I say here is just parroting what others say anyway...Also - looking for one low grit stone for Edge Pro, the lowest I have is the Shapton Glass 320 , should I get the Atoma 140, or the Nubatama 120, or any other ?Is there any advantage to having a full set of these Atoma plates ?

The Atoma 140 is an excellent baseline for the EP. Especially if you are working with very abrasion resistant steels, then the 400 600 and 1200 are real useful. The 1200 is also very useful to raise some mud on stones too, particularly natural stones. I really like the Nubatama 150 Bamboo for the EP (coming soon) as it removes the scratch pattern from the Atoma 140 nicely. It holds up better and works quicker than the 120 Shapton stones and otherwise there really isn't any competition. The 120 Nubatama is a bit coarser and should also remove the Atoma 140 scratches even quicker but leaving a slightly rougher finish. I'd add a Nubatama 400 stone after it before going to a 1k stone.

Thanks Ken, you know so much you get rookies like me totally confused. Which would be the abrasion resistant steel you refer to ? I have about 6-7 knives altogether, from Takeda Aogami AS to VG-10, and also White 2. I also have a Ryusen Blazen SG2 powdered steel utility knife (is this abrasion resistant ?), they see home action only, I use something pretty much every day, but not every knife every day. I suppose I have more than I need, but don't we all...So what should I get then to complement the Shapton GP stones (lowest is 320, then 500, 1,2,4,8) without going overboard-Just Atoma 140- Atoma 140 + Nubatama 150 Bamboo (or 120 Bamboo ?)- The above + Nubatama 400 to use instead of Shapton 320 and 500 (or it should only be used if I used the Atoma 140, otherwise the Shapton are ok ?)- The above plus the other Atoma plates ? Thanks

First get the Atoma 140. Try it out with what you have. Then consider the 150 Bamboo EP (coming soon). Use that with your other stones. While these are excellent steels in the knives you mention they aren't extremely abrasion resistant steels that have very high vanadium carbide levels.

Would you folks help pick some Shaptons for me?I have all the EP stones, and am going to start collecting the Shaptons for the time in the future for (if) I get proficient with the EP.

My first thoughts are to begin with the Atoma 140 and the Nubatama 150 to start with before the Shaptons.Now what? I was thinking of the Shapton 320 to follow the Nubatama, but not sure. I would like to be able to progress to the Shapton 8000 eventually.

At the moment, my "good" knives are an Artifex Gyuto and a Kikuichi TKC Gyuto. I'll be adding to this at about a knife every six weeks. It's time for one now.Most of the other knives are Forschners/Victorinox (Chef's, boning and cimeter). Two nice Sabatiers. One Wenger boning, and one Old Hickory butcher.

Sorry for the rambling, my brain gets scrambled with this stuff.

Also, concerning the Atoma, the Nubatama and the Shaptons, where on the stones would you start sharpening with new Victorinox-type knives and on the new TKC and Artifex?

Hmm, that's a lot of questions. Probably should have spaced them out over a week or so.Anyway, thanks much if you can help.

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